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Month: February 2016

So, it’s been around two weeks since I last wrote and I’m so annoyed with myself. Though, not entirely my fault, I was struck down for just over one of those weeks with Bacterial Bronchitis and although I’m still coughing, I’ve managed to get back to my usual routine of nail painting and planning activities!

What’s happening? Well, right now I’m waiting for my 2nd coat of Christian Louboutin nail varnish to dry on my fingers and toes as on Monday 29th I’m taking my best friend to London for the day so I can try on my 30th birthday present – a pair of Christian Louboutins.

See, I’ve loved Christian Louboutin shoes for years. The red bottom is the most deliciously devilish feature on a pair of shoes I’ve ever seen. They’re not only a statement, but they are the ultimate in high end luxury. They’re elegant, graceful and tasteful.

I’ve had my eye on the Pigalle model for years now as I’m a huge fan of pointed toes. I find the point to be quite sexy, powerful but also quite restrained. Round toes make me feel young and girly, yet a point makes me feel womanly and strong.

I have one pair of stilettos and I paid £6 for them from an antique shop. They’re original 1950s stilettos and unfortunately, they have now seen better days. I painted them myself, as they were a sorry looking ‘ivory’ (with dark marks) and the soles were plain black. I couldn’t afford Loubis so I grabbed two tins of enamel paint and painted the shoes black and the soles red.

I was even asked by a man in a nightclub if they were Louboutins and I couldn’t help but say yes! I was so ashamed!

So, I turn 30 in June and my amazingly wonderful boyfriend is treating me to a pair of Christian Louboutins. I can’t begin to explain how lucky I am to have a man who will save for months and months so he can buy me something I really want to mark this milestone in my life.

Here’s a picture of the Louboutins I’ve been ogling:

But, I can’t decide between the kid leather pair or the patent pair. I love patent leather and have 3 black patent 1950s handbags all slightly different from each other. So, the black patent Pigalles would match them all. But, patent leather shows up scratches, so do I want the kid leather pair so they can be polished regularly?

I’m feeling absolutely horrific at the moment, thanks to a bout of Bacterial Bronchitis! The good news is, I have now been given a course of Amoxicillin so I should be back to my chatty self in the next week or so.

Lying in bed waiting for my painkillers to kick in and I remember back to Halloween last year and a conversation I had with a guy I knew from secondary school; we were in the same form group from year 8 to year 11.

I’ve spoken before about how I was bullied for being a greebo and a goth and for standing out from the crowd, so this will come as no surprise that I wasn’t the most popular girl when it came to the boys; I plucked up the courage to ask the really gorgeous and popular lad I fancied (not the guy from Halloween) to the year 11 Prom and was brutally rebuffed – cue the sad violins!

Anyway, the conversation with this other guy is on Halloween so obviously we’ve all been drinking and we lose our inhibitions slightly! I don’t normally shout after people I recognise but after a drink I get a little bit brave. The conversation goes as follows… I ask him if he recognises me and he says yes! We exchange the usual how are yous and then he says in a coy voice that he used to fancy me at school!

I bet you’re thinking ‘Awww how sweet’ aren’t you? So did I… Until he finishes with ‘but I couldn’t tell anyone or I would have been bullied……..’

The poor guy has a crush on a girl in secondary school but he can’t tell anyone or he would be bullied for liking someone like me. Where’s the sense in that?!

I don’t really know how I feel about this little anecdote. I don’t know if I should feel proud for being myself and being fancied for it or sad that someone would have been bullied if they had a crush on me.

I know I went through an awkward, gawky phase but listen up kids, that phase is exactly that; a phase.

Since leaving high school I’ve done so many things with my life; I’ve run my own business, I’ve trained as a body piercer and I was signed to a modelling agency and am a published model!

So there you go… The ugly duckling did indeed turn into a swan and all those lads in high school can go suck it!

Note: I have no ill feelings towards the guy who I spoke to in the pub on Halloween. I’m glad he told me he had a crush on me back in the day – my years in secondary school weren’t the best ones, so it’s nice to know someone had a crush on me back then, so thank you x

A wonderful thing happened to me last night.
I received this comment from one of my followers on Instagram…

….in response to this image I posted to my Instagram account last night. I was feeling bummed about how ugly disability aids are – my wrist splints (worn most nights) are a hideous shade of ‘nude’ and are really really ugly…

I’ve written briefly about my hidden illness before. I don’t often post images of myself when I’m having a flare up, but if on the rare occasions I do, I get this sort of response from just one person, it makes the pain of living with my condition, so much more worth it.

Here is my message to the world:

You may see me on Instagram with a full face of makeup on, my hair clean, nails done… but what you don’t see is how I feel once I’ve done all of that, or on the many days in a week where I physically cannot do any of that – which is why I posted this image above. To remind everyone that we’re all human and sometimes, we just need support – physically and mentally.

I’m sat right now wearing yoga pants, a hoody and a dressing gown with my hair scraped into a bun. I have no makeup on and I’m in a lot of pain all over my body but the comment above has brought a real smile to my face.

So thank you, Shewolfcollective, thank you for recognising my struggle and thank you for your kind words.

Six or seven years ago, I was dressed head to toe in All Saints clothing. They were making clothes that really appealed to my dark side; with their trademark asymmetrical cuts, slouchy pirate style clothing, dresses with Vivienne Westwood inspired handkerchief hemlines and t-shirts emblazoned with terrific artwork by the wonderfully macabre artist Laurie Lipton.

I was absolutely in my element… and then something shifted. Fashion trends changed and All Saints became a completely different animal. It went down a very minimalistic route, and whilst I like to call myself a minimalist goth, this was just, in my opinion too… plain. Uninspired, even.

For years after I struggled to find fashion like it, until I stumbled across a German fashion site called Orimono that offered mostly men’s fashion, but also some women’s and some unisex clothing too. I found a piece from brand called Preach and a piece from Thom Krom that just jumped at me straight away. They weren’t on the lower end of my budget, but I knew I had to have them. Here they are modelled on the site:

It’s been 4 weeks since we came back to Earth with a bump from our winter break to Iceland and I can say hand on heart, I really do miss being there – so does my partner who said only the other day that we will be going back, for sure.

In part one, I talked about the Blue Lagoon and how to pack for a winter trip if you have a chronic illness. In this part I’m going to be describing Reykjavik, The Golden Circle Tour and the Northern Lights.

Firstly, Reykjavik.

The bus journey from the airport took us around 45 minutes. Our hotel was in the centre of Reykjavik (on Laugavegur which is the main shopping street in the town) so we got to see a lot of the outskirts on the way and it wasn’t too pretty. But once we got into town, we saw how pretty it was! The hotel was placed in the middle of Laugavegur so we were within walking distance of the Harpa (the concert hall) and the world famous Phallological Museum. Of course, we had to go to the Penis museum – it was hilarious.

Our first night’s meal was stunning at Laekjarbrekka – one of the oldest buildings in downtown Reykjavik. I had a traditional Icelandic lamb meal and my partner had a vegetarian Barley based meal. We both loved this little romantic restaurant.

Image borrowed from whereintheworldisceleste.blogspot.co.uk

Before we went to Iceland, people warned us that it was expensive and yes, it is! We didn’t buy anything other than food and excursions and I came home with £20 worth of Krona left. My partner had a little bit more because all his meals were vegetarian and therefore slightly cheaper than my meaty meals! We both took around £300 worth of Krona with us for the 5 days we were there and it was enough. If you wanted to buy a (very itchy) wooly Icelandic jumper, you’d need around another £100 worth of Krona.

Here’s Hallgrimskirkja – the Church we went to for New Year’s Eve fireworks.

Another thing we decided before we went to Iceland was that we wanted to TRY and see the Northern Lights. My partner was adamant that we’d see them, but I tried to keep an open mind so I didn’t get too disappointed if luck wasn’t on our side.

We booked our Northern Lights tour with Grayline (we did all our excursions through them) and I have to say a huge thank you to the guys running this excursion. Normally, the tour runs for around 3-5 hours depending on the weather and how far they take us to find the lights but for us, they went above and beyond because they realised that this was the only night during this week anyone was likely to see the Northern Lights and I am so thankful they did, because WOW. You cannot describe the feeling you get when you see the cloud suddenly part, and the light show dances before you like you were the only people worthy of seeing this natural phenomenon.

Sadly, my blasted iphone wasn’t good enough to take any images (and we both decided beforehand that we wanted to experience the phenomenon of the Northern Lights without seeing it through a camera) so you have to take my word for it, but holy murphy, it was sensational. It felt spiritual. It felt mystical. Other worldly.

If there’s one thing you should do in your life, it is see the Northern Lights in person.

Because the weather didn’t look great for the rest of the week, the guys running the tour decided to take us further north than they normally do on the Northern Lights mystery tour. We didn’t get back to our hotel until 3am, but it was so worth the tiredness!

As we were only in Iceland for 5 days we booked as many excursions as possible so the next day (after 5 hours sleep) we were up and out for the Golden Circle tour.

On the Golden Circle Classic Tour we first visited Þingvellir National Park. Breathtaking.

Gullfoss Waterfall: The first waterfall I’ve ever seen and wow, it was stupendous!

If someone was to ask me what one thing I couldn’t live without in my wardrobe, it would definitely be my leather jacket. I’ve been a leather jacket gal ever since I was given a leather jacket by my Auntie Jackie back when I was about 7 years old. It was my cousin’s but she didn’t want it, so it became my pride and joy (until I got fat a few years later and it no longer fitted me!)

These days, my leather jacket is a biker style, but cropped. I have womanly 40″ hips and a standard ladies leather biker jacket won’t do up around my curves. I’m also 5’2″ so they’re always too long on me anyway.

So, this is the jacket that you will rarely see me without……

But, no leather jacket is quite right until it’s been personalised in some way.

On my daily browsing of Instagram I came across a ‘thing’ I admit I never knew existed – lapel pins on leather jackets that has apparently been a thing for decades!

I stumbled across an independent business called Little Whip who makes the most spectacular lapel pins I’ve ever seen and they’re just so ME!

Image Copyright: Little Whip

Pictured above is the Trois collection; Desire, Giallo and Jute pins available as a full collection for $27 (currently sold out!)

And here is my jacket with the pins that I bought; the packaging it just TOO CUTE!!!

I found the cutest little bat pin on ebay for £1 so I started with that, then added the gorgeous Little Whip pins once they’d arrived from America. They are so worth the wait, seriously. I’m so in love with them.

And here I am, modelling my favourite jacket and my new pins!

And my next purchase will be this fabulous baseball top with a latex glove and whip on the front… I have a thing for fetish I think….